More torque please

I haven't ever had any trouble merging EV mode. If I did, I'd just drive in EV-Auto mode instead.

 

me neither ... and I am in SoCal ...

 

You are just blowing smoke.
No two individuals have exactly the same motivations when buying a car.
Yet you presume to know the minds of several million of them.
Pure hogwash.

If you are trying to impress us with your intelligence.......I think you are failing miserably.
Others may not share my opinion.

 

Took a contractor to lunch in my vehicle. He was just in from LA. He asked why I kept using my turn signal (he was serious). He said turn signals were a sign of weakness in CA.

 

I honestly don’t understand ev-auto. How is it good for an engine that has been cold for hours to be fired up all of a sudden and running at full power?

But yeah obviously if I find it risky to merge to a freeway in ev mode I turn the car to hybrid mode 5 minutes before.

 

I had to google "turn signal" ... true statement.
When you get your Prime, and you decide to not disable LDA, you might even use those suckers more often to avoid the distraction on your MID reminding you that you are changing lanes
Back on topic, my commute home, taking my normal route, I have to cross 6 (six) lanes to get from fwy entry into the carpool lane within ~1/2-3/4 mile (and traffic going 25mp in the right and 75mph in the far left lane), found myself going 80mph in EV and barely made it, no issue with acceleration, just frickin dangerous as the next entry into the carpool lane is 3 miles away and mostly stop/go ... so i changed my local route and now get onto a dedicated on-ramp in the middle of the fwy straight into the carpool lane ...

 

They made it more Efficient, more ride comfort (except Trim Two seats ), more pep, and (for the Prime) more EV and more starting acceleration by Combining MG1 & MG2 with a one-way clutch.

Since you say you're buying one, that means your rant was in vain. Toyota wants to spend the minimum amount to get the sale and they did that.

 

A more powerful motor would shorten a typical drivers EV range. Yes, the current battery could handle it, but you are draining it faster for that acceleration.

The Prime starts at $27.5k and has tight margins. Even a small cost increase for a more powerful motor is going to be noticed. But it isn't just the only cost change. If it's physically bigger, it will require a new case for the motors and transaxle. It will require an inverter to match its higher power, along with software changes. The clutch added for the Prime, likely just replaces the bearing on the ICE input of the unit.

Despite how Toyota markets it, the Prime is just a Prius, and the more you change the parts between the two, the more you increase the cost for the Prime. Toyota isn't going to support the Prime by subsuming some of its costs into Prius sales.

 

I find that the prime will "chirp" the tires way too often on my hasty take-offs, and acceleration seams good enough.

Good enough until you get to about 33 miles per hour. Then it suck eggs.

jp

 

The tires needed to take advantage of any motor torque increases will drop efficiency for every mode.

 

I dont understand that , ive driven my prime on expressways for 5 days now.. while in ev auto mode , eco mode, with ev miles left the car is much more responsive and peppy accelerating on an entrance ramp than in HV mode, where you have to go into power range and hope it gets up to speed in time.

and in that 5 days the car stayed in ev mode till the ev battery drained befote turning on the ICE.

 

Instant torque gives the illusion that the car is faster in ev mode, but it’s only quicker from 0-30mph. Also, what I meant with my post is ev auto puts unnecessary strain on the engine because it has to be turned on to big loads without completing a proper warm up cycle.

 

The Toyota HSD dies its best to have the engine complete its warmup cycle. It monitors the engine better and quicker than you can.

 

I'll measure acceleration to highway speed in both modes. my impression is im further down the ramp in hv mode before i can merge.

 

Yeah I understand that it completes the warmup cycle but there’s a reason why when you start this car in hv mode the engine is on but won’t be driving the front wheels for the first few minutes.

 

by the way about loads on a cold engine... i know it costs gas, but as far as engine life...

i live in the north east very close to the expressway both at home and my destinations... i never let my 07 prius warm up... winter and summmer going highway speeds right away.

i traded the car at ten years and 196 k miles... engine still delivering high mpgs.

the mpgs i trade off for convenience of getting somewhere on time.

 

It's basically like a gen-1 Prius plug-in mode, which never was a problem for me starting cold on a ramp.